The API has a Variable for Ports which is called: ImprovedCraftChance. It is set to TRUE even for neutral ports.
@admin It seems you forgot to change that one to TRUE for the ex safezoneports (state API from 29.02)

Soo another thing @Privateer can confirm: Muskets/boarding mods in general need a nerf.
I boarded Privateer in a fight outside MT.
I was sailing an ocean with Marines 15 and Shooting and 1k crew.
He sailed a Buc with Nassau Fencing masters, Redoutable Muskets, 5 rings, Marines 15 and Shooting 1-3 and about 800 crew.
1st round was me attacking him pressing muskets. I killed about 80 Crew and he killed 350 of mine.
After that I messed up and forgot to defend but the first round of that boarding shows the strory of rageboarding atm.

Without reading anything of what was said before becuase no time: In my opinion boarding is too strong at the moment. Even without boarding mods all you need is one good stern rake on a equal ship and a boarding to win the fight. Rageboarding vets will club new players faster than they can get what's happening to them. In my opinion getting someone into boarding should be made harder. Something like same speed +-.5 knots for 30-60 sec and also make boarding from anywhere but broadside to broadside a lot harder. As it seems we are going towards realism atm and boarding another ship up it's now or stern would just doesn't work as well as broadside to broadside you should maybe get penalties for a bad boarding position when attacking, dieting deck guns or muskets if it stays possible to board from wierd angles.
My opinion is based on the fights I had yesterday especially one against Prussian where first Banished boarded Vazco and won in 2-3 rounds than Liam went around and boarded 2 Prussian 1st and one 2nd rate. All with only very few rounds.
I fear new players who don't know how bad it is getting boarded will be very very frustrated if they feel save against a similar sized ship and all of a sudden just die in two round boardings.

Today is the day something that never happened before happens. Today is the day HAVOC for the first time ever invites someone to the clan.
This person we had has some great abilities all of us in HAVOC look up to:
His amazing Saltfarming skills on the formums.
His ability to make allmost the entire community of the game get mad at him.
His great understanding of the game mechanics and how the game should be played.
Anyone guessed it yet?
The person is
@admin
All of us were impressed by the ammount of salt he managed to generate in the last few days and we decided it would be time to invite our idol to the clan.

I had a shitload of fun grinding ship slots and exp when i first started.
I agree with your point that a wipe won't automatically fix all the issiues in the game BUT for example the current economy system (when dub drop rates where pretty much nonexistend in PvE) would have benefited from a fresh start. Atm the economy is not in a good state and a new well thought out system which gets restarts to test should benefit us imo.
You can't change an economy system and expect it to work when you keep massive ammounts of money and goods flowing arround.

Today during the PB of Cartagena Sweden vs GB the server went down. GB had won the PB we had 998 points a Mortar Brig sinking and a Buc allmost sunk.
Screenshots and vidoes coming below:
We have 100% prove as you can see in the video above that we would have won the PB and would like the port as a result of it. As you can hopefully understand all of us are very upset with this especially becuase it is the second time it happened in a HAVOC offensive PB.
Also some of us have strange issiues with logging in now. I get a very strange screen as it can be seen in the next screenshot:

We stayed up for a PB exactly once! La Navasse. Difference there was they could fill the PB no problem at that time. I am about 250% sure Prussia can not fill more than maybe 5k BR at this time of day.

We played in dutch for quite some time. We fought Denmark (BF) a lot and usually ended upo outnumbered. We also fought sweden, usually outnumbered. Just having less people does not decide the outcome at all. Yes you might not be able to screen people out or even field a screening fleet but you can fight them in a PB.
Today at Monte Christi we had 2 screeners. Yes an amazing 2! you would have had no trouble at all getting into the PB so the numbers problem isn't a real one. And if u know in advance you can not fill a PB do not flip a port in the first place...